Breaking Bad…

Some straight like you, giant stick up his ass, age what – 60? He’s just gonna break bad? – Jesse

Sometimes, life forces you to cross the line. You’re going about your normal everyday routine, when suddenly something truly awful happens and all that pent-up rage you feel about your job, your marriage, your very existence, is released with unstoppable fury. Some call it “reaching the breaking point”; others call it “breaking bad.”

The title comes from a Southern United States colloquialism “to break bad” which is defined as “when someone…has taken a turn off the path of the straight and narrow, when they’ve gone wrong”. The series is set and filmed in and near Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Breaking Bad is an American television show created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set around Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher with a teenage son who has cerebral palsy (RJ Mitte), and a pregnant wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn). When the already tense White is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he breaks down and turns to a life of crime, and starts producing and selling methamphetamine with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) in a desire to secure his family’s future financial security.

This show does seem to have much in common with Weeds, which also has a so called “normal” wife entering the world of drug-use, gangbanging, violence, and crime. The difference though, and the reason you should watch this is the dialogue that exists between Walter (Cranston) and Jesse (Paul), the way the two play off of each other is brilliant and Bryan Cranston also won an Emmy last year for his performance in Season One.

Walter’s knowledge of chemistry allows him to chemically engineer and produce the finest quality crystal that Jesse has ever come across, it’s a simple matter of streets knowledge blending with academic knowledge. Season Two is close to finishing and it has already been picked up for Season Three, so you would do well to pick up this series on dvd or find it streaming online someplace.